


Isle of Flightless Birds

by coffee_crows



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Castiel and Dean Winchester Need to Use Their Words, Castiel and Dean Winchester in Love, Castiel/Dean Winchester Mutual Pining, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutual Pining, Protective Dean Winchester, Someone Help Them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:27:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24993853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffee_crows/pseuds/coffee_crows
Summary: Cas gets caught off guard in a hunt and gets injured. The Winchesters try to do the best that they can for him, but to do that, he’d need to let them near him.
Relationships: Castiel & Dean Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 16
Kudos: 98





	1. Of Wings and Things

Dean had been pacing for the last half hour before finally giving in to his impatience and worry with a defined groan. He’s fed up with waiting on Cas to let him in, especially since he’d been too stubborn to let them check the extent of his injuries after their ambush just earlier that evening while looking for some ingredients for a spell they’d needed. He hated being brushed off like that, that was his job after all.  _ Maybe he’d worn off on the angel a little too much _ , he mused while picking the lock on the bedroom door, which proved to be a feat with the bunker’s old yet resilient doors. He eventually got it open and let it swing out into the room as he barged right in.

“Don’t even think of pushing me ou-what the hell..?” Dean’s voice softens from bewilderment (though he’s also evidently concerned) at the sight he’s greeted with upon getting the door open. The angel is slouched forward with his back facing the door and his head down, but that isn’t what gets at him; it’s the visual of Castiel’s wings, that look like they’d been shredded by the hounds they’d been attacked by just hours earlier, which is evident from the matted blood in the feathers that aren’t molting or already missing.  _ Part of this is your fault, _ he’d thought with a bit of guilt as he edges closer. He had, after all, been the one who wasn’t quick enough to respond when Cas called out to him. Dean could still hear the desperation and anguish in his voice. 

“I can feel you staring.” Castiel breaks the silence, causing Dean’s focus to shift to the way that the angel’s shoulders sagged. It wasn’t until now that he managed to hear how his breath came out in little shallow huffs, which made the awkwardness that he’d felt when Cas had caught him turn to worry. 

“What the hell happened to you?” Dean asks, moving carefully around the outstretched wings, that hang off of the edge of the bed, until he’s in front of Cas, who gives him an annoyed look.

“Don’t ask stupid questions.”

Dean wants to roll his eyes. “You know what I mean. You-I’ve never seen your wings, Cas, not like this… Why can I?” he instead chooses to ask, nodding toward the limp and bloody appendages. Why do they ever keep white sheets anyways? It’s not like they ever stay that color.

“I tried to use my grace to heal myself, but I could only manage to mend the broken bones and some flesh wounds, which seemed to drain me… I didn’t want you two to see me this way…” he admits with a low voice, almost seeming ashamed. 

“Well if it’s because you think we’d worry, then you’d be right. I mean, that’s sort of our job, man.” Dean assures him, which gets a shake of a head in response. 

“I didn’t want you to see my wings… It isn’t right for humans to be able to see them, and mine are… less than appropriate even so…” At this point, Dean has knelt down in front of him to see him better, even though he isn’t all too fond of seeing him this way. 

“Why? I think they’re awesome! Aside from the blood, but I’m sure that isn’t normal,” This causes Castiel to finally meet his eyes .

“Awesome isn’t a term I’d use…” he grumbles in protest, trying to avoid thinking of the burning feeling of his cheeks as they turn a shade of pink. 

“Tough. I’m going to go get a couple of rags and the first aid kit so I can help clean you up, so don’t lock me out again or I’m just going to kick the door down.” Dean warns, he’s not entirely serious, but if it comes down to it he would. He leaves the room to go get the supplies and ends up running into Sam. 

After taking a couple of minutes to inform him of everything, he makes his way back to Cas’s room, which is still left open like he’d asked (or rather warned). Dean pulls up a chair and sets the kit on the bed before taking the damp rag and beginning to clean the wounds on the angel’s shoulder, which gains a hiss of pain. 

“Since you can’t angel mojo this I’ll just need to stitch you up, okay? Try not to move around too much.” Dean informs him as he takes out a needle to thread next. 

Cas pretty much complains through most of Dean stitching him up, which the hunter finds a little ironic. It’s not like he hadn’t been tortured or snapped to bits by his own siblings before, is he just being stubborn because he’s feeling vulnerable now?  _ It doesn’t exactly matter at this point _ , he thinks as he begins to wrap Cas’s shoulder, though trying not to interfere with his wings yet; he knows that those are next. He needs to figure that out still, and then maybe figure out what to do with all of the scattered feathers that are littering the floor. Dean reaches out to touch one of the wings only to see Cas flinch. 

“Hey, I promise I won’t hurt you, just let me help..” the hunter’s voice is soft and comforting, his words reserved only for the angel to hear. Castiel looks at him and nods just a little to give him the silent “go ahead” that he needed. He begins to carefully sort through the molting feathers and help clean out the blood from his wings, trying not to become distracted at how soft they are. It’s hard for him to keep himself from feeling through the feathers every so often though, especially when he gets most of the blood out, bringing them back to their softer state. It’s easy for him to miss how good this feels to Castiel though, as he’s practically leaning into every touch with his eyes closed and body now leaning almost against the hunter. Dean only notices the effects of his actions when he gets closer to the base of Cas’s wings and watches the large appendages twitch from sensitivity and then looks to see the rosy cheeked angel looking back at him sheepishly.

“I should-uh-I’ll stop..” he backs off, feeling his cheeks burn hot from embarrassment. Cas nods in a silent agreement, though he seems to miss the touch from the other just as soon as it was gone. Dean stands up and brushes himself off before beginning to pick up the rags and the kit he brought in; they’d have to clean his sheets and the floor later, he doesn’t want to jostle Cas around too much since he looks tired enough. 

“You look beat, why don’t you just meet me in my room and you can sleep in there?” An odd request, since there are dozens of other empty rooms he could’ve offered. He’ll just chalk it off to being worried, because he’s definitely not just offering so he can cuddle up to him, that isn’t what this is at all; after all, that would be weird. 

“Angels don’t require sleep.” Castiel responds, though now letting his wings stretch out so that his feathers can realign better. The hunter watches in awe,  _ why couldn’t he have seen them sooner? _

“Yeah, well, considering how you look right now, it couldn’t hurt. We can clean up in the morning, alright?” Dean swears that he can almost make out the hint of a smile from Cas, which causes him to smile in return as the angel looks up at him. He knows that he just won by that look alone.

“Okay…”


	2. Interrupting Moose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How is it that Sam knows they're in love with one another when they don't? Fate managed to put the two densest idiots together and they still don't even know it yet.

While Dean had given Sam a quick rundown on the wounded angel’s earlier condition, he hadn’t said much else afterwards, and while he would’ve expected it to take some time, the younger Winchester begins to grow worried that his injuries had been worse than Dean let on. Sam decides to make his way to Castiel’s room, assuming that they’d be found there; though when this doesn’t seem to be the case, his worry changes to suspicion. He makes a side note to help Cas clean up his room after finding the two, only hoping that he doesn’t walk in on something he wouldn’t want to see. Sam decides to check the bathroom next, but to no avail. 

“Come on, where did you guys go?” he thinks aloud to himself, making his way down the hall of bedrooms and checking some of the guest rooms as he does until he reaches Dean’s room. He remembers faintly how stubborn Dean had been about having Cas sleep in the same hall as him. 

_ “It’s just to keep an eye on him when he’s around. Plus, he doesn’t seem to be arguing. He did pick the room out,” Dean reasons, though Sam knows that it’s really because he likes having him close by. He wouldn’t doubt that if Cas had asked to stay in his room with him instead, Dean would’ve allowed him.  _

Sam slowly opens the door to his brother’s room to finally find where the two had gone off to. While the only light in the room is coming from the hall where he’s standing, he can clearly make out the two asleep together - well - not  _ just  _ asleep together. Castiel is wrapped up in the hunter’s arms and has his head resting on the other’s shoulder, while one of his wings have stretched out over the bed to work as a second blanket over the two of them, the other draping off of the bed and onto the floor. The younger Winchester wishes that he brought his phone to get a picture of the scene that he just walked in on, he’s almost even tempted to go get it and come back. It’s been a while since he’s seen his brother sleep so contently, come to think of it, he can’t picture any time that he’s looked so happy in his sleep. Sam decides it’s best that he just leave them be and ask Dean about in the morning, he’s definitely not going to just let him off the hook with this when the two have been pining for each other for years now. 

Dean is the first to wake up the next morning to his surprise; since he’d been the first to fall asleep the night before, he hadn’t actually expected Castiel to fall asleep as well. He doesn’t quite mind though, since it gives him time to really take in the other’s features when he’s at peace. He can now more easily make out the creases made from his eyes and browline. Dean realizes he’s been staring too long when Cas stirs awake and begins to rub at his eyes with a small yawn. The Winchester can’t help but smile at the sight before him. 

“Morning Sunshine, did you sleep well?” Dean asks him, and Castiel wishes he could see the other like this forever, with the way he’s smiling back at the angel and the soft “just awoken” look. The nickname doesn’t do much to help either, making this feel almost dreamlike for him; if it is, he doesn’t want to wake up.

“I suppose, though I haven’t needed to sleep since I had lost my grace after the fall of the angels-”

“It’s a simple question, Cas, no explanation necessary.” Dean ruffles the angel’s already messy bed hair with a soft chuckle. Castiel responds with a little huff, though stretching out his wings as he moves to sit up. 

“Hey-be careful with your shoulder!” The hunter warns, sitting up quickly to put one hand on the small of his back and the other on his uninjured shoulder. Cas had conveniently forgotten until now of the condition of his shoulder, which is now evident from the small hiss of pain he lets out. Dean helps him sit up the rest of the way before remembering that other than the bandages used on his shoulder that wrap over his chest, he’s shirtless. If Dean once thought seeing him without the trenchcoat was weird, this is a whole new level of naked. 

“Dean, your hand…” Right. His hand had somehow made its way to the angel’s chest… Shit.

“I-You.. You need a shirt.” He stammers in embarrassment, taking his hands off the other and standing up to pretend that nothing even happened. Dean somehow seems to miss that Cas’s face is a new shade of pink. 

“I do not require a shirt, Dean.”

“Well I say you need one.” he argues, searching through his closet for an old shirt that he’d be willing to let Cas use while his wings are still present, assuming that he can’t just hide them away like before for the time being, and it’s not like he can just fit them through like an arm since there aren’t shirts just  _ made _ for wings or anything! Dean tosses him a worn down AC/DC shirt that he’d mainly used for working on Baby, until now, that is.

“Slip that on and I’ll cut it somehow so you can wear it more comfortably until you get better.” 

Castiel hesitates. He’s seen Dean wear this shirt for years, is he really wanting to do this? It isn’t like he  _ needs  _ to wear a shirt, he’s just going to be at the bunker, after all. 

“Come on, put it on.” The hunter insists, grabbing a shirt out for himself to put on so they can eventually go down and get something to eat, not that Castiel eats anyways, but it’s the thought that counts. Castiel tries to get it over his head but ends up being restrained with his arm, which catches Dean’s attention. 

“Oh, right. Here, I’ll just help.” He steps closer and begins to help Cas work his way into the shirt as carefully as he can without hurting him. He then grabs a knife from his nightstand and cuts a section of the back off of the shirt, which if it were for anyone else he’d probably be more bothered about it. After guiding his wings through the shirt, Dean steps back to give him space to stand up, and he’d hate to admit it, but it is sort of cute to see Cas stretch and yawn with how his wings stretch out as well, taking up the span of the room. 

“Thank you, Dean.” Cas speaks once he’s finally standing again, the rest seems to have helped him more than he’d expected it to. 

“It’s nothing, really, just stop getting yourself beat and we can call it even,” Dean teases, just a little, knowing that Cas has helped heal him more than he could truly count, Cas knows this too. “Let’s go get something to eat,”

“I don’t require food anymore Dean,”

“You know what I mean, come on,” The Winchester retorts with a roll of his eyes. He starts to make his way out of the room and into the hall, though he swears that Castiel was smiling at him as he left.  _ That was supposed to be a joke, wasn’t it? _

“No-No! If that was supposed to be you joking, it wasn’t remotely funny! I swear I’m going to have to teach you better humor,” Dean swears, swiveling on his foot to face Castiel, who at this point is chuckling quietly at his response. He practically loses it when he sees Cas like this, in his clothes, with _that_ _smile._ It’s like something from his dreams - not like he dreams of his best friend like _that,_ that would be weird… even so, if this were a dream, the next thing he’d do is cup his face in his hands and kiss him with a chuckle. 

But this definitely  _ isn’t  _ a dream. So why is he standing so close to him right now? What is his hand doing?

Castiel glances briefly at the hand that is now cupping his jawline before meeting the other’s eyes. He isn’t pulling away.  _ Why isn’t he pulling away?  _ The back of the hunter’s mind wonders, the rest of his mind yearning to know what his lips would feel like. 

He doesn’t get to find out.

“You two up yet?” Sam’s voice echoes down the hall, causing them to both snap out of whatever trance they’re in, Cas stumbling back with a blush as Dean quickly pulls himself away. He silently curses Sam for ruining the moment, but it’s probably for the best. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to possibly do more parts to this, but I'd need to know if anyone would be interested first. If you are please let me know !


End file.
